


Mad with the rest of the world

by Lakela



Category: Pirates of the Caribbean (Movies), Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl (2003)
Genre: Elizabeth's daughter, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-05-20
Updated: 2011-05-20
Packaged: 2017-10-19 15:13:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 849
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/202241
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lakela/pseuds/Lakela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The first time he notices she has her mother’s eyes, she is only five years old.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mad with the rest of the world

**Author's Note:**

> Beta by: porridgebird and xenia007
> 
> AU after CotBP (ignores the other three films). Also, for the purposes of this fic, Elizabeth and Will have a child right after the events of CotBP, which makes the girl roughly 30 years younger than Norrington.
> 
> Tiny "spoiler" for a line borrowed from one of the cut scenes from DMC ("Salvation").
> 
> No idea where this came from and to what purpose... I just can’t seem to get Norrington out of my head. (not that I’m complaining)

The first time he notices she has her mother’s eyes, she is only five years old. Fearless browns staring at him. Defying him already at such a young age. Her mother calls for her, admonishing the girl for speaking to strangers. It’s not until the girl is already by her side that the mother realizes who the child was talking to.

Have five years abroad changed him so dramatically that not even Elizabeth -- Mrs. Turner -- recognizes him anymore? She invites him over and he can’t find the words to refuse. Later that evening, the girl sits on his lap and asks him if he knows the story of the _Black Pearl_. He shakes his head in answer, smiling at her mother, as the little girl proceeds with the -- mostly made-up -- tales of Captain Jack Sparrow and his ship. She shrugs off his warning that not all pirates are good men like Jack Sparrow and continues her storytelling until her mother takes her to bed. James leaves with the promise to come back soon.

She’s not yet twelve the first time he sees the woman in her, the woman she’s growing into. He’s at the Turners’ home, as has become a Sunday tradition for those weeks when he’s ashore, and the girl greets him as they wait for her mother to join them. The girl asks him if he has noticed, and he blinks at her in confusion. “New dress,” supplies Elizabeth, as she enters the room from behind him. “Oh,” he says, nearly blushing, “you look lovely.” And he means it.

It’s her eighteenth birthday when, after the celebration, Admiral James Norrington proposes. She looks at him surprised -- is that a smirk? -- and politely thanks him for the offer, but declines assuring she loves him as an uncle and promptly trots away. He watches her as she joins her remaining guests, a smile on her lips and a glass of champagne in her hand. He had always felt older than those his age, wiser, more mature. He rather took pride in it. But it’s not until now he realizes he is old. Plain and simple.

She’s nineteen when she gets married to a young sailor. He receives the wedding invitation by Elizabeth’s hand, but this time he finds the excuse to decline, sailing away the very same day, a half-made-up assignment at the end of his voyage.

She’s twenty-two when one night she shows up at his door unexpectedly. He doesn’t know what’s changed and he doesn’t dare to ask. He holds the girl awkwardly in his arms as she cries. He’s never done this before, he realizes; he doesn’t know how to comfort a woman. He offers to take her to her mother but she doesn’t need a mother, she says.

And then she kisses him. She claims his mouth in a deep, hot kiss, full of need, want. Moments later she pulls away to watch him, her cheeks flushed and still wet. Then slowly, she starts shedding her clothes for him, revealing herself to him, and later helps him out of his own garments just as tenderly. For a moment he thinks he’s forgotten how to breathe, but when their bodies come together, breathe is all he _can_ do. Somewhere in the back of his mind he knows there’s no going back after this, no undoing what he feels for this girl. This woman. But he can’t stop, doesn’t stop.

This time she’s the one who leaves with the promise to come back.

 

 

At thirty, she’s there when they bury him. Her mother is sobbing in her arms and she consoles her, quietly. Had it really been five years since she last went to him? Since their last night together?

The first night she’d been there out of spite against her husband, who clearly thought that being a sailor, he ought to start looking for wives in other ports. The second night out of curiosity; she wanted to see if it would feel like the first night, if again he’d make her feel like no man had ever done before. The third, the fourth, her husband still at sea, she just couldn’t keep away. Eventually, she realized she was in love with him, but never found the courage to tell him. 

She always thought she’d go back. Those three years together had been… She missed him, sometimes terribly, but life, marriage, her children... something always got in the way.

Weeks, months, eventually years went by and now...

Her mother still sobs on her shoulder, yet not a single tear has wet her own cheeks. She looks around them, all those uniforms, all the protocol... she could never understand why he clung to it, but now she thinks she does. “Better mad with the rest of the world, than sane alone,” he once told her.

 

It’s not until she gets home, the children tucked in and her husband asleep, that she finally cries. And she tells James silently that being with the rest of the world doesn’t make one less alone – but she suspects he already knew that.


End file.
